WotBS WotBS play-through thread, with 4E newbie goodness

As my group was switching from 3.5E to 4E, I elected to start us off with the WotBS 4E conversion. Neither I, nor any of my players, have played 4E before, and 2 of the players are D&D newbies to boot.

However, they were all very excited about giving things a go, so off we went.

I'm a big fan of props and handouts, so I went ahead and built a cardstock terrain version of the Poison Apple Pub, printed out the copy of the closure notice (and posted it up on my front door for the players to read), and filled the pub with lots of cardstock props like tables, chairs, and a bar.

Playing through we have:

A Dragonborn Paladin of the Raven Queen
A Dragonborn Cleric of Kord
A Wild Magic Halfling Chaos Sorceress
An Elven Wizard
A Tiefling Hybrid Rogue Warlock

The pub conversation was a little hard for them. They got right away that they needed to go with Torrent to the Depository to get the intelligence from Rivereye, but Torrent was unable to convince them to come up with a plan for escaping the city before they left the pub. The closest they got was the idea to ask Rivereye if he had some secret ways out of the city (since he was a former spy). Eventually Torrent went along with it, worried that they were wasting too much time spinning their wheels around the table.

The pub combat was a little too easy, I think, but not as a result of the encounter as written: I have the worst dice luck ever. They love me to DM, my dice luck is so bad. The two Dragonborns were thrilled to find out that the Black Horse Recruits were minions, and had no problem mowing through them to clear a path out of the front of the pub. The Thug got ganged up on by the Paladin and Cleric when I made the mistake of shifting him one square into the pub (through the front door).

No one tried to escape through the side door, and the cleric even intimidated one of the scouts into surrendering to the cleric, and then they were able to pool together enough money to convince the scout to hire on with the party. (He agreed and later made his escape while they were in the Terror Skies encounter, pushing his way off through the crowd while the party was distracted. The cleric was very put out by this.)

The pub combat took us about two hours to get through, since everyone was new to 4E -- so be aware if you're playing this for the first time, that first combat is slow, especially with the large numbers of NPC attackers.

After they left the pub -- sending Kathor running off with his tail between his legs (the dogs were VERY effective in nomming on the Paladin), they eagerly stopped to help the refugee family, attempted to save the building jumper (failed strength checks and she went splat ... The cleric was disappointed, but the Paladin roleplayed it to the hilt and dedicated the death to the Raven Queen), and completely refused to look for Kiki.

We pick up again two weeks from now, with the Depository encounter. I've built the blueprints for my Depository terrain, now I just have to build it out.

Lessons learned:

I. Terrain is priceless. It's incredibly helpful for clearing up line of sight and cover questions. If you can build it, I really really recommend it.

II. Make sure new players are crystal clear on how to use the power cards from the Character Builder. The Sorceress had a bit of a difficult time grasping that the +attack, damage expression line at the bottom of the card really did include all relevant bonuses (before any buffs or debuffs applied in combat).

III. Minis or monster counters: Use them if you have them. I forgot to print out monster counters ahead of time, winged it with dice, but I really prefer the monster counters. Mount them on some scrap foamcore if you have it, and give the counter to the player landing the deathblow as a trophy. They eat it up.

So, yesterday my hapless group of players made their way too the Gate Pass Depository and confronted Larion and the Solon. It was a rough fight -- the Solon's explosion at bloodied and 0hps was especially painful for them, but in the end they overcame their enemies.

That wasn't the highlight of the session, though.

No, that happened when they confronted F. Mortus, called his bluff on cutting the throat of the baby, and then when said baby had said through slashed, and then his corpse tossed at the players, the Paladin decided to use Lay On Shield and BATTED THE BABY CORPSE OUT OF THE AIR WITH HER SHIELD.

Speechless. I was absolutely speechless.

Just when you think the party has sunk as low as it can possibly go ...

So, um, did that heal the little tyke?

My players also have the amazing ability to offend my morality. Just a hint, but the Ragesian inquisitor Guthwulf who gets mentioned in so many of the modules was originally one of my players. I figured a torturing demon summoner would work better as an antagonist.

So, lots of movement from last time. The group has played through the White Wyrms encounter and the Dead Rising encounter, and achieved level 2.

I ran both encounters by the book, and they went mostly smoothly. I mis-interpreted the poison aura of the pseudo-dragon, but caught my error three rounds into the combat, so we just started the encounter over. I wasn't able to lure them over any of the traps, though. They were glued to the open area I designed near the side door of the warehouse. And in Dead Rising, I decided the crossbow using skeletons weren't smart enough to know they could leave their posts as long as they had bolts yet, so my group was able to apply some good crowd control tactics and break up the party. The sorcerer decided to bust out her Dazzling Daily Power on the wight, which really put a crimp in his day.

The challenge for me so far has actually been in keeping things organized. I have a spreadsheet I use for keeping track of wish list items, treasure parcel placement, and treasure parcel distribution. Since I am using wish lists, I decided that any treasure the party missed, well ... it's their fault for not finding it. So the rapier that one member requested was probably found and picked up by someone who stopped to help catch the lost dire weasel, instead of by the party.

The feedback I've gotten from the party so far has been overwhelmingly positive. They LOVE this campaign so far. And so do I. It's very well done.

I've recently changed how I keep track of treasure. I got tired of juggling wish lists (especially given that some players are always more up to date than others). So I pulled the Ace-10 out of a deck of playing cards, and told my players that they should keep a list of the magic items they might want for their level (for my four players, that's level +1, +3, and +4). When the adventure says there's treasure, I just deal out cards equal to the number of parcels, and if the numbers A, 3, or 4 come out (the corresponding treasure parcels being 1, 3, and 4 for my four players), then somebody gets a magic item, which they can then choose from their list. If it's another card, then I throw some loot at them from the tables in the DMG based on their card draw and based on how many healing potions they still have. The players themselves came up with the rotation for items, and I just put the used cards away until the next level. When the deck is empty, I know I've handed out all the necessary parcels.
Made my life a lot easier, so I can focus more on making counters for battles instead of wading through treasure lists and figuring out the optimal place to put it.

-Berc

We started monday night. The pub fight dragged on. Thou at the end they blocked kathor and he did not escape. Opps. They ignored half of the mini quests on the way to the depository. The paladin as the party spiritual liaison said to stop and stay one life would slow us down from doing the greater good. GETTING out of there. The cleric rightly agreed saving them and maybe ending up dead would no good. Torrent just rolled her eyes. When the kiki quest came about I never saw so many angry glares directed at me. Ok I get that every time I gleefully knock out a player. The fight at the depository went bad. No one could roll higher than a five it seemed like. Since my players are always paranoid i cheat I roll in front of them now and time after time I rolled a twenty. They started turning the fight around, when BAM they bloodied the Solon. Everyone died.
Opps? Again?

I ran a couple of paizo adventure paths, and I ran Scale of war for a while(we never finished). This has to be the best thing I ever saw for 4e. I wish there where more good campaigns for 4e out there.

Don't let them stay dead -- have Rantle come in and save them! Certainly they have failed the encounter, but survival (and being indebted to the smug, self-important Rantle) is generally much more interesting, I'd say...

Saturday we pick up with the players toddling off to confront Shealis. I'm using World Works Games terrain, so I pre-built layouts for both her apartment and the outdoor encounter, that way I'd be prepared no matter how my players played it, and I've pre-built terrain for the outdoor gnoll hunt encounter. I don't think they will get much farther than that.

Whoops, kind of let this fall by the wayside. Here's how things stand so far:

Scene 7: The Force Is With You

Deciding that Shealis was more of a threat than they were capable of handling, the group were able to use a combination of diplomacy and intimidation to gain the information they needed from the eladrin, though it came at a price: when the case was opened and the information decoded, a copy of the contents were to be magically transmitted to Shahalesti. With this agreement in place, Shealis directed the party to a hideout in the eladrin ghetto where her Shahalesti conspirators were to be found, with the case.

Scene 8: Eladrin Ghetto Hideout

The party covertly entered the eladrin ghetto as directly by Shealis, but then spent several minutes loudly arguing over the best way to proceed in a snow-filled square. Their arrival was not missed by the Shahalesti.

Scene 9: Spy Headquarters

The hideout was located, the conspirators were killed (and one captured), and the case recovered. The captured eladrin was turned over to Buron at the safe-house, and the party now turned its attention to escaping Gate Pass.

Act 3:

Scene 2: To See Councilman Menash

It was decided that they would approach councilman Menash, and beg his aid in leaving the city. He readily agreed, and shared a plan to disguise the party as a Gate Pass patrol. Before they left his house, he gave them a small, fist-sized package to deliver to Dougan Rambausen, a dwarven instructor at the Lyceum academy.

Scene 3: Street Ambush

When the party departed Menash’s estate, they were ambushed again by Black Horse thugs, but the ambush failed and the mercenaries were handily defeated, though a few escaped. After the ambush, the party was accosted by local hero Rantle, who asked the party to deliver a scroll tube to his sister Katrina, if they encounter her in Seaquen.

Interlude: Captain Herreman’s Barracks

Then, the party met with Captain Herreman of the Gate Pass guard, who raucously agreed to the deception proposed by Menash.

Scene 4: Magic Mayhem

The party encountered a “protection scheme” in the midst of demonstrating why protection insurance was necessary, but after some intimidation and discussion, decided it was none of their business.

Epilogue: Moving On

Finally, the party ended their fourth day of the new year by returning to the safe-house to gather supplies before escaping the city. Their ruse was successful, and they are now headed on horseback south from Gate Pass, towards the Indomitable Fire Forest.

We play again on Saturday, and the party only has the Gauntlet, Knoll Hunt, Dwarves, and Inquisitor encounters left in the adventure prologue. So far, so good!